WAUSAU – Three Wausau School District officials, along with school officials from Marshfield and Ripon, traveled to China last month as part of a growing effort to draw Chinese students to state high schools and the University of Wisconsin System.

The district had to cover $5,062 for airfare and visas for superintendent Kathleen Williams, PreK-12 director of curriculum and instruction Michael Schwei and secondary education director Thom Hahn. The delegation's Chinese hosts covered all other expenses.

"We looked at this as a long-term commitment and investment," Hahn said.

Chinese students who transfer to Wausau schools would pay full tuition of at least $12,000, which quickly would offset the district's expense.

"It isn't often that something comes to us that has a positive financial impact in addition to a positive educational impact," Wausau School Board president Lance Trollop said. "Diversity is a good thing. The world is getting smaller every year. And exposing our local students to students of other cultures is a good thing."

Chinese leaders want to work out a cultural exchange to help their students as well. Chinese officials in the Jiangsu Province and UW System staff initiated the conversation.

Making the program a reality would not be possible if Wausau administrators tried to bring it together from this side of the Pacific Ocean, they said.

"The Chinese place an extreme importance on relationships," Hahn said. "If we wanted to do this, we had to go to China. So they could see us face-to-face. Without that, it was a deal-breaker."

Wausau, China connections

In mid-April the delegates traveled via Shanghai to the Jiangsu Province on China's eastern coast. They visited a few cities in the region, including Zhangjiagang, home of Wausau's sister school, Jiyang High School.

Wausau administrators joined counterparts from Marshfield and Ripon, as well as Keith Montgomery, dean of the University of Wisconsin Marathon County, for the journey.

Montgomery brought local ginseng as a gift for his Chinese hosts. "They were well aware of Marathon County ginseng," he said.

A University of Wisconsin Marathon County brochure for Chinese speakers.(Photo: Contributed)

Fifteen of UWMC's 1,000 students come from outside the U.S. — including three from China. International students are referred here by the UW-Madison's international student office or the U.S. Department of State, Montgomery said. Drawing more Chinese students here will help expand cultural diversity and enrollment at UWMC.

"This isn't going to change the (tight) budget situation, but it is important," he said. "I would like it to grow."

This summer, a group of Chinese students will come to Wausau for a three-week summer camp put on by UWMC with Wausau School District teachers — "so that they get a little acculturated to Wausau," Montgomery said.

Some may return to enter high school in 2016-17. Trollop expects the program to start out slow. If it grows, the school board already has placed a cap on it so Chinese transfer students can't exceed 2 percent of the high school population, he said.

Chinese students perform well on standardized tests, Hahn said, but schools in the United States are known for promoting creativity, collaboration and problem solving.

"The biggest benefit is just the cultural exchange, understanding their culture where they came from and being able to share our culture with those students," Hahn said.

Nora G. Hertel can be reached at 715-845-0665. Find her on Twitter as @nghertel.